


a lifetime in one kiss

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU for events of TROS, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Past Leia Organa/Han Solo, Sad with a Happy Ending, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, cassian survives scarif
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21926848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: General Leia Organa dispatches secret agents to gather intelligence.But one of those agents is someone that had once been dear to her.Someone who had always fought on the side of the light, even as he lived in the shadows.Someone who may yet be the hope she needs to survive the final battle of the Resistance.Even a General deserves to be happy.Spoilers for TROS!
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Leia Organa, Cassian Andor/Leia Organa, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	a lifetime in one kiss

There’s a soft knock at the door of the General’s simple quarters. Leia lifts her head from where she had laid down to rest after yet another day of training Rey. Her tired eyes blink twice, trying to focus on the soft shadows of twilight. It seems to Leia there is less light in the whole universe, these days, than there used to be. But still, that is a private thought, and not one that can be shared. Her troops need her to be their General, to be strong for them. So, she says, with a clear, strong voice, “Come in.”

Leia does not bother reaching for her blaster, though she was expecting no visitor. She is safe here, she knows. As safe as she can be, on any planet, anywhere. Besides, there is no one who can harm her worse than the pain she has already felt in these past years. She has lost Han, her son, her brother. There is little left to lose, except the Resistance and her hope, and both those things, Leia knows, will go on until her very last breath, if no longer. She carries the hope for the new dawn at the end of the fight, as she has for so long. As she always will, even if she has no hope left for dawn to ever reach her own heart, for any light to ever dispel all the shadows carved in her by loss and grief.

The door opens. A man enters. To most people, the man is no more than any other tired old freedom fighter. With his grey hair, his ever-present limp, and his tired eyes, he seems half-ghost to many of them. He fades into the background in all the Resistance meetings, never there nearly as often as the others. That, though has nothing to do with his age and everything to do with his occupation.

Even now, decades since he first joined the fight, Cassian Andor is still a spy. He still remains in the shadows, always fighting for the light. He has never given up on the Rebellion, though, Leia thinks, perhaps they have given up on him.

No one had realized he’d survived Scarif for nearly a year. He’d been picked up in a last minute rescue attempt; an attempt which had only saved him.

An attempt that had been forgotten about when Alderaan had been destroyed. Cassian had used that time to melt away once more, sliding into the ranks of the Empire to pass information back to them from within.

Only years later, after Endor, had Leia learned that he had survived. And only after Crait had he come back to her side. Well, not her side. She would not hope for such a thing, not now, not after knowing the bitterness of heartbreak so well. No, Cassian came back for the good fight, to battle once more against the ever growing darkness. Cassian had come back, because he too hoped for a future he may still not yet live to see.

He had come back and she had meant to talk to him, at some point, of all the hopes and dreams they had left forgotten, back on Sesid, where they had completed their last mission together. It had been a warm night, Leia remembers, there on the remote sandy beach, with the moon so large and bright above them, when they had last been alone. On Sesid, where they had posed as husband and wife to fool the Imperials and had succeeded so well that they’d nearly fooled their own hearts into believing it to be true. Or at least, that was what he had said. Leia knew then, as she knows now, the love she had felt for him had been true.

She knows, because she knows that only true love can hurt this much.

Sesid had been a lifetime ago. Perhaps more than a lifetime ago. Perhaps it had just been a dream, tucked away inside a memory of a mission completed in the name of what now feels like a never-ending war.

Or perhaps it had been a tiny glimmer of hope in an otherwise dark year.

Regardless, Leia held it close to her heart, as she held Cloud City and Alderaan and the apartment she had raised her son, and all the places that she had loved and lost. Her personal geography was one of heartbreak. She could no longer count all the planets she had wept upon, nor name all the times her heart had shattered.

She only knew she had picked up the pieces just as many times as it had broken.

But of course, Rey had needed to be trained and the Resistance had needed Cassian, so only now was their first time alone.

She’s not sure what to say to him, now, when it feels like their time is so short and the distance between them is so vast. How does one sum up a lifetime lived apart from someone she had once dreamed of a life with? It’s hard. Too hard.

“When do you leave?” she asks. Leia knows he will. He’s only here to say goodbye.

Leia is so tired of goodbyes that it aches in her bones.

“Soon.” Cassian swallows, looks away from her for a moment. “I never got a chance… to… I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry. About Captain… about Han.” He calls him by his first name for what Leia thinks might be the first time.

“Sorry about our breakup or about his death?” Leia’s voice is wry. There’s a little bitterness in her frustration she can only voice to Artoo now. It’s the sort of bitterness that she had once been able to share with Luke.

But even he is gone now too.

“Both.” Cassian says. His voice is firm, as strong as it had been when they had been in their prime. “I know you loved him.”

“You know, I loved you first.” And how different things would have been, if the universe had given her that love to keep. “You were my first heartbreak,” she admits.

He winces. “You were young. Too young.”

And yet, within that same week, she had aged centuries. She had been a girl who had said goodbye to a spy, a man her father had worked with to secure the U-Wings for the Rebellion. Cassian had been her companion on more than one mission herself, as well. She had no idea, that day, that she would say goodbye to him, to her father, and to her planet, all within the same week.

“Ah, to be young again,” she says, shaking her head. “And foolish.”

“Now that, Princess, you never were.”

He’s the only one she permits to call her that. Because he doesn’t mean it mockingly, the way so many in the political world had. And it’s not a term of endearment as Han had used it. For Cassian, it is a simple fact. The title had been what had kept them apart, many years ago. Because he was a nice man, one who respected the difference between a spy and a princess; even if the spy was now the lone survivor of an impossible mission and the princess was the lone survivior of a planet-wide genocide.

But as lone survivor, she knows she always must smile, must forge ahead, must be the light to those who need it most. Outside of this room waits the Resistance and they cannot know she is heartbroken, yet again. They cannot know their General has any weakness. Not now. Not ever. She must wear the mask, for the good of them all. She must be above grief, above hopelessness. She must feel nothing and yet, be everything. A General cannot be weak. A General can barely be human.

 _Perhaps._ She thinks, with bitterness in her thoughts like choking vines, _I am more my father’s daughter than I thought._

With that bitter reflection in her mind, she quickly replies to his earlier comment, trying to keep the mood light. “Oh, I've done plenty of foolish things in my life, sir. If you need proof, I can play at least eighteen different holo-documentaries on all my follies.’

“And if you strung together all of my identities, I’m sure mine would number far higher.”

He hesitates. “Pri-”

“Leia.”

“Then call me by my name, too.” It’s a surprisingly strong request form him, softened only by the pain in his dark brown eyes, eyes that are the same as they had been, decades ago, and the the way he adds, in a whisper, “please.”

“Cassian,” she whispers. She wonders when the last time he’d heard that name had been. An eon, perhaps, given the way he sighs, the way his hands tighten, only slightly, never more than would be respectful, on her waist. It’s the sort of sigh that carries the weight of the galaxy, one that she is well-familiar with.

One that Han never understood, though stars knew he tried. For Han, despite, or perhaps because of all of his struggles, never carried a burden for too long.

It was something she had loved about him.

She’d thought she had lost Cassian, lost Alderaan, lost… lost everything that had been so good in her life.

Then, there was Han and he was good. Strong in so many ways, and he had tried, they had all tried, to be a family. But that had failed too, as if the universe knew that Leia didn’t deserve to be a mother. She had no mother herself, after all, though she had grieved two. She had no family beyond Luke, now, and even he was gone.

Was there some other universe, some alternate space where they were all happy?

“If Rebellions are built on hope,” he says softly, “could this Resistance be built from second chances?”

His words are so familiar, and yet, feel so far away to her. She smiles, softly, then. “I don’t suppose this is when we run off to some tropical planet and live out the remainder of our days in peace?”

He shakes his head, his grey hair falling into his eyes. “I’m afraid not. We have to fight for that peace. If not for us, then for the others. For the children.”

“Is that why you came?”

He nods. “I know you need spies. Now, more than ever. I’ll find the source of the Emperor’s voice, Leia. I promise you. I’ll bring you back hope, or die fighting for it.”

Cassian steps forward. Leia holds her breath. For one moment, when his arms wrap around her, she is a giddy young princess and he is the Rebellion’s youngest spy. For one moment, for one kiss, the decades fall away.

She knows a lifetime of happiness in that one kiss. It plays out in brilliant color, making her heart soar. It's a lifetime that began on that beach at Sesid and was destroyed on the beach at Scarif. It is beautiful and wonderful and so, so very dangerous. Because it is one perfect moment in a life that has been far from it. It's the sort of moment that might let her start dreaming again, if she dares to, and Leia knows that dreams never come true. She is a General now, and a General builds missions from plans, not from dreams.

It is a lifetime lived in his eyes, too, she thinks, when he steps back to look at her, with warmth in his gaze and a soft, rare smile on his lips. Leia considers asking him what he is thinking, asking him if there truly are second chances for people like them. People the historians will call heroes, though they feel more like ghosts in their own time. People who don't live their happy endings, though they fight for them for everyone else.

Leia considers any number of things, but her heart cautions her against speaking any of them. It remembers heartbreak, all too well. 

And then he kisses her forehead and she knows it is goodbye.

* * *

His voice comes back to her, one last time, days later. There is night all around her and that same coldness settles in her bones. It’s his final transmission. They both know it to be true, as soon as the sound crackles to life in her command station. His ship is too damaged, he is too injured.

They’re both too old to be doing this, Leia thinks.

First, as always, Cassian follows the mission’s protocol. He relays all he knows, more than enough for the Resistance to track down the source of the ghostly transmission. More than enough for them to start planning one last battle.

More than enough, and yet, the time they have left is not nearly enough.

“Leia,” he whispers her name. Not princess, not General. Just the name of a woman, a woman who would grieve him, even if the General she pretended to be could not show it.

There are tears in her eyes as she returns the favor, giving him his name one last time. He is more than spy, more than a tool wielded for the good of them all. He is a man, a nice man, a good man. The man she wished she could have married.

The man she still would, if she had the chance. Leia says, just as softly, “Cassian. I… I love you. I still do. Completely.”

She doesn’t hold her breath. She knows what’s coming. He’ll say he knows. He’ll thank her, or reassure her that of course he knows that she cares. Leia is so used to giving love and yet never receiving it in return. She loves her son, still, though he has done such terrible things. Loves Luke, though she wishes he had not abandoned her. Loves Han, though he too had left her.

Loves them and knows they will leave her, just as her planet, her family had left her on that terrible day.

But Cassian does not say what she thinks he will. Instead, he whispers back to her, “I love you, Leia Organa. I love you the way the moon loves the sea on Sesid, I love you the way the snow loves the wind on Fest.”

Sesid had been where they had kissed, once, a lifetime ago. She had thought, for so long, that he hadn't cared about her. That the kiss they had shared meant little, if anything at all to him. Leia had never been happier to be wrong.

Fest had been his home, more than a lifetime ago.

“And I love you the way dawn’s light loved to dance on the rooftops of Alderaan. I love you within a thousand memories and ten thousand more dreams. I love all that we had been, all that we achieved, and all we dreamed of. I love you, Leia, as hope itself loves you, because you have been the Rebellion’s hope, the Resistance's hope, and my own, for so long.”

The transmission crackles out. Leia clutches her heart, as a single tear breaks free of her General’s calm demeanor. She is loved and it is brilliant and terrible all at once.

* * *

Yet, Leia is loved and for the first time, she does not have to fight to keep that love alive. 

Because hope lives, even when so little else does.

Because for once, she is allowed to love and be loved in return,without ever saying goodbye.

Because although the transmission ends, hope does not.

And when the Falcon returns, it brings with it not only Poe and Finn and the rest of the needed information for the Resistance, but it brings back someone Leia herself needs.

Not for the Resistance, not for the good of them all, but just for her. It is about time, perhaps, that she has someone just for her. It is about time, perhaps, that she is allowed to hope for simpler things than peace itself.

“Cassian,” she whispers, for what she knows now is far from the last time. A smile appears on her face, just as brilliant as Alderaan’s dawn had once been.

His kiss is just as sweet as spring on Fest had once been.

A new hope ignites within Leia’s tired heart. A hope that ahead lies a new path, a new sort of life. One last chance at love, one last chance for them both.

Her first love, she knows now, is her last one too. Together, the spy and the general, the ghost and the princess, walk hand in hand. They’ll hold hands again, and again, keeping each other close as the darkness closes in, then celebrating, at last, when the light finally wins. And they’ll hold hands again, in that bright future, as they walk together under the moonglow of Sesid, with the warm sand beneath their feet and new light in their eyes.

For once, and for all, hope returns to Leia’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> From the moment I saw the opening scroll, I knew I had to do my own Cassleia fix-it fic! I hope you enjoyed. Comments welcome <3


End file.
